Land Systems Science Symposium at AAG 2013

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2014) | Viewed by 8442

Special Issue Editor

College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia
Interests: land use dynamics and potential impacts around increased foreign ownership of farmland in Australia; the coca/cocaine trade as a driver of land use dynamics in humid tropical forests; analysis of landscape fragmentation patterns in tropical and sub-tropical landscapes
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A special symposium focused on research advances and needs in the geographical dimensions of land systems and land change is being organized to take place within the 2013 AAG Annual Meeting in Los Angeles. Land systems and land change are rapidly growing in importance in both research and policy at local, regional, national and international scales. Advances in understanding of the relationships of land with human and environmental systems, developments in measurement and monitoring of change, use of advanced GIS/remote sensing and modelling technologies, the increased availability of datasets, and increasing capability for modeling and analysis of change give opportunities to offer new insights into land systems and the nature of change.

The symposium will be made up of a series of paper sessions. Geographers and others with active research expertise and interests in land use, land systems and land change science will participate. This symposium builds on a long tradition of research in land use and land cover, and of coupled human and natural systems within Geography, the focus provided by the Journal of Land Use Science and Land, and interests of the land change science community.

Papers addressing the symposium theme are encouraged, and particularly papers that are directed at the provisional list of session titles. Additional sessions will be considered based on abstracts submitted. Paper sessions presenting case studies of land systems and change in different regions of the world will provide a basis for comparative analysis and synthesis; other paper sessions will explore methodological and human and environmental aspects of land systems.

Provisional session titles:

Case studies of land systems and change in

  • North America
  • Latin America
  • Europe
  • Australasia
  • Africa
  • Asia

Analysis and modeling change
Human dimensions of land systems
Environmental dimensions of land systems
Emerging issues

This special issue in Land welcomes extended submissions from the symposium.

Prof. Dr. Andrew Millington
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Article
Integrating Land Change Science and Savanna Fire Models in West Africa
by Paul Laris
Land 2013, 2(4), 609-636; https://doi.org/10.3390/land2040609 - 18 Nov 2013
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 7989
Abstract
Fire is a key component of many land use systems and a determinant of land change. There is a growing concern that climate change will cause more catastrophic fires, but in many areas the impacts will be mediated by human land use practices. [...] Read more.
Fire is a key component of many land use systems and a determinant of land change. There is a growing concern that climate change will cause more catastrophic fires, but in many areas the impacts will be mediated by human land use practices. In African savannas, for example, fires are frequent and research finds low inter-annual variability in burned areas in places with highly variable rainfall. This regularity of fire suggests that African regimes are humanized, meaning that they are governed by human practices more than climate variation. Although these fire regimes are stable, they vary greatly over space. This paper will determine the reasons for two distinctly different fire regimes in Mali by integrating land change and savanna fire science. The study takes a two pronged approach to examine the causes of fire regimes and the reasons they change. It tests the notion that land cover (not land use) governs fire regimes by combining long term burn scar and vegetation analysis with local interviews. Results indicate that efforts to link fire and land change science, need to focus more on subtle differences in land cover, landscape pattern and human practices, than on drought, land use or fire policy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Land Systems Science Symposium at AAG 2013)
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